In the staging of product for picking by any of a wide variety of robotic devices, it is highly desirable to provide a mechanism that supplies the product to the robotic picking device in a timely and often in “bundles” or “layers” comprising varying numbers of individual product elements. Such a need exists, for example, in the packaging of bread or other similar bakery products.
In the prior art, such staging was often accomplished by manual separation means or otherwise using mechanical counters and the like. While such methods and the apparatus associated with them often proved entirely acceptable for relatively low speed applications they were often woefully inadequate for supplying product in groups or bundles of varying quantity to high speed loading devices such as picking robots.
There therefore exists a continuing need for a product feeding system capable of supplying product in varying numbers to a relatively high speed load robot or other device.